Established in 2000, the Czech National Disability Council (CNDC) has aimed to advocate, promote and meet the rights, interests, and needs of disabled people in the country, regardless of the type or extent of their impairment. It has collaborated with the state administration and local government at all levels as well as with organizations and institutions working in this field at both the national and regional level.

It is the advisory body of the Governmental Board for People with Disabilities. It is a member of the governing board of the national development programme Mobility for All. It is a member as well of the joint committee for the Programme of Development and Renovation of Public Transport Vehicles, and the two Boards of the Association of Cities and Municipalities.

Aside from those, the CNDC collaborates actively, too, with the Association of Regions of the Czech Republic, the Association of Employers of Disabled People in Czech Republic, and the Trade Union of Employees in Health and Social Service in the Czech Republic.

Comprising it are member organizations, among of which is the ARCUS Cancer Centre that was founded in 1993. It has helped cancer patients and their families since then under the chairmanship of John Koželská, winner of the Olga Havel signatory of the Paris Charter against Cancer.

There are also organizations specifically designed to cater Czechs with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), cystic fibrosis, Charcot-Marie-Tooth, Huntington Disease, chronic diseases, and deafness.

The Czech AIDS Help Society was established in 1989 as a self-support initiative of PLWHIV [people living with HIV]. Through finances from grants, donations, and fees in its own activities, the Czech AIDS Help Society continues to promote HIV prevention and awareness through anonymous and free-of-charge HIV testing; shelter accommodation services to PLWHIV in its own social center, the Dum Svetla (Lighthouse); on-site HIV/AIDS counseling service in Prague and Ostrava; a national toll-free HIV/AIDS hotline; legal assistance to PLWHIV that were discriminated against; and anti-stigmatization campaigns.

The Czech Cystic Fibrosis Organization was founded in 1992 by the parents of the children who has it. Originally, it was called the Club of Parents and Friends of Children Cystic Fibrosis. The parents pass on practical experiences to each other; in early days, the club voluntarily works for several mothers of sick children. It still involved in “active” parents till this day to handle the provision of the patients, and, together with the staff, promote cooperation among the center; inform the public about cystic fibrosis; protect the legitimate interests of the patients; secure funding for the activities of the club; subsidize the necessary equipment; and support families of CF patients with low incomes financially.

Society CMT, on the other hand, is an association founded in June 1999. Its objective is to defend, promote, and fulfill the interests and needs of those sickened with Charcot – Marie – Tooth, a neurological disorder that affect the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord, in coordination with state and local governments.

Widowed by the American folk singer Woody Guthrie who suffered from Huntington’s Disease, Marjorie founded an association for those with the rare inherited disease as well. It—the Czech Huntington Association—started to set up a self-help organization in May 14, 1991 to “map” the cause of an illness in Bohemia and Moravia characterized by progressive dementia, abnormal posture, and involuntary movements.

To prevent the “diseases of civilization” (e.g. cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, allergy, oncological diseases, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, severe renal and metabolic diseases, osteoporosis, vertebral diseases, etc.), the Union of Persons Affected by Chronic Diseases in the CR spread its network of 330 organizations in 290 towns and villages in the Czech Republic with its 55,000 members.

Those with hearing impairment, meanwhile, can go to the Czech-Moravian Unity of the Deaf. It was founded in Brno in 1998 and operates in Olomouc, Breclav, Jihlava, Pilsen, and Prague, aside from there. Its aim: unite the other associations for the hearing-impaired in the region to “effectively promote their mutual cooperation.”